44 may seem broken, disintegrated with the crumbled past j
actually Eleusis is still intact and it is we who are broken,
dispersed, crumbling to dust. Eleusis lives, lives eternally
in the midst of a dying world.

The man who has caught this spirit of eternality which,
is everywhere in Greece and who has embedded it in his
poems is George Seferiades, whose pen name is Sef eris.
I know his worl only from .translation, but even if I had
never read his poetry I would say this is the man who is
destined to transmit the flame. Seferiades, is more Asiatic
than any of the Greeks I met 5 he is from Smyrna origi-
nally but has lived abroad for many years. He is lan-
guorous, suave, vital and capable of surprising feats of
strength and agility. He is the arbiter and reconciler of
conflicting schools of thought and ways of life. He asks
innumerable questions in a polyglot language 5 he is inter-
ested in all forms of cultural expression and .seeks to ab-
stract and assimilate what is genuine and fecundating in
all epochs. He is passionate about his own country, his
own people, not in a hidebound chauvinistic way but as a
result of patient discovery following upon years of ab-
sence abroad. This passion for one's country is a special
peculiarity of the intellectual Greek who has lived abroad.
In other peoples I have found it distasteful, but'in the
Greek I find it justifiable, and not^only justifiable, but
thrilling, inspiring. I remember going with Seferiades
one afternoon to look at a piece of land on which he
• thought he might build himself a bungalow. There was
nothing extraordinary about the place—^it was even a bit
shabby and forlorn, I might say. Or rather it «w, at first
sight I never had a chance to consolidate my first fleeting •
impression; .it changed right under my eyes as he led me
about like an electrified jelly-fish from spot to spot, rhap-
sodizing on herbs, flowers, shrubs, rocks, clay, slopes, de-
clivities, coves, inlets and so on, Everything he looked at